STORY - Thankful for many things – including home-made soup By Scott T. Sturkol On Nov. 30, my wife Bobbi put together a beautiful batch of beef vegetable soup. The day she made the soup, I had two helpings and wanted more but just couldn’t eat more. And that got me thinking – how lucky am I to have some nice home-made soup and so many other things. This past Thanksgiving, my family and I gathered at my daughter Holly’s home in Madison, Wis. Along with Holly’s guests and our families, there were 13 people around the Thanksgiving table enjoying a meal together. I can tell you we were all thankful for the hard work Holly and her family did to put the meal together. We all were also thankful to be together as a family. Being a thankful person really isn’t something we should reflect on just once during a holiday in November. It really should be a year-round train of thought. Though good food is something I’m always thankful for because it’s good to have food available, I’m more thankful for many other things. I’m thankful, first and foremost, for my family. To be honest, they are really the only thing I treasure most in this life. My wife, children, grandchildren, parents, brothers, sister, in-laws, aunts, uncles, cousins of any extension, friends and more are all people in my “family” who make my life worth living. On the day after Thanksgiving, I had some time to go out and about with three of my children I don’t see all the time now. We all piled in the car and went out like we were doing it every day. Everyone, despite being older, all knew how the car game worked and we just had a fun time. If I flashed back 10 years with these same three children, we would have been at Grand Forks Air Force Base, N.D., heading out to go shopping somewhere and maybe getting a “treat” while out on our adventure. Even though a decade has passed, my kids will always be people who I am thankful for most because the love they spread to others started with my wife and I. I’m also thankful to have had the chance to serve in our military. Though I am a civil servant with the Army now, my 20-plus years in the Air Force are really what have defined my life. I do miss wearing the uniform every day, but am truly thankful I was able to serve alongside some really wonderful people for that many years. And as a veteran, I’m also thankful for all my other fellow veterans. Not enough can be said about how so many of them continue to serve their communities. The men and women who support the veterans organizations in Gogebic County are a perfect example of that ideal. There are many, many other things, and people, for which I am thankful every day. But nothing can make me be as thankful as I can be as much as I love being an American. I have said it before and will say it again – despite our ups and downs in this country – it is one of the greatest places in the world to live and raise a family. As the holidays roll on, keep in mind all the things that make you thankful. Look beyond the gifts and the holiday festivities and find the things that make you thankful – like a good bowl of soup. Enjoy your holidays and be thankful every day. (Scott is the son of David and Barbara Sturkol of Wakefield. He is a retired Air Force master sergeant and currently serves as a photojournalist for the U.S. Army at Fort McCoy, Wis.)
Posted on: Mon, 08 Dec 2014 13:47:54 +0000
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